The food is the star at Café di Scala's no-frills Beatles Brunch

Feb. 4, 2014

Café di Scala in Des Moines hosts a monthly Beatles-themed brunch on the first Sunday of every month. For the brunch, the waitstaff wears Beatles shirts and the food is named after different Beatles songs. Reservations are required. / Andrea Melendez/The Register

ADVERTISEMENT

There are no Yellow Submarines on the wall at Café di Scala in Sherman Hill. The restaurant, located in a Victorian home, doesn’t have cutouts of the Fab Four standing in the entry way. There are no autographed pictures or guitars hanging on the wall.

Despite that, it’s become a destination for Beatles fans thanks to the Beatles Brunch, held on the first Sunday of each month. Fans are regularly lined up on the porch when the doors open at 10 a.m.

They come for dishes like The White Album, an egg casserole, a Sgt. Peppers pepper-filled crepe, desserts like the Strawberry Fields panna cotta or a Hey Jude flourless chocolate torte and drinks named after Beatles venues like The Cavern and Shea Stadium.

Beatles Brunch started four years ago when owner Tony Lemmo and chef Phil Shires were looking for a way to expand on the restaurant’s Thursday through Saturday hours and bring in some extra income while the economy was in a downturn. Lemmo was a more casual Beatles fan, while Shires is dedicated enough that he once had a dog named Eleanor Rigby.

“It was another way to generate some revenue,” Shires said. “We figured we would do it once and see if it worked. We texted some friends and family to see if they wanted to come in, then we did it the next month and the next. Now we have a following.”

Café di Scala seats 54 people and serves 100-120 during a typical Beatles Brunch. That’s concentrated into a four-hour period, so it’s a pretty good turnover rate for a leisurely meal like brunch. It’s less leisurely for Lemmo and Shires; they spend their Sundays in the kitchen, only finding out which Beatles songs are playing when servers sing them as they pick up plates.

Families come in wearing Beatles shirts, and visitors come from the Cedar Falls-Waterloo and Iowa City areas. In 2012 Beatles Brunch was listed in a Fox News story on Beatles-inspired restaurants in America alongside The Beatles Revolution Lounge in Las Vegas and the Hard Rock Café.

The restaurant has a small staff, and Sunday brunch follows close on the heels of Saturday night dinner, so Lemmo and Shires don’t want to bump up the frequency of the event. At once a month, it’s special, and it keeps Beatles fans wanting more.“It’s extra work, but it’s fun,” Lemmo said. “We get to think outside the box a bit.”